Programmatic media is held up by Google as delivering “the ultimate promise of brand advertising in the digital age”. However, for many brands, display ads have become a dark and mysterious world.
Typically, metrics, and therefore success, aren’t clear until measurement data is available after a campaign has run its course, leaving advertisers blind to the true effectiveness of their ad content.
When timely data is available, tightly controlled budgets and complex stakeholder chains often mean hands are tied when it comes to being able to respond with creative changes that could increase performance during a campaign.
Even the most experienced marketers, and their production budgets, can be overwhelmed by myriad creative options that arise when the targeting capabilities of programmatic media are added to the mix.
The antidote? Dynamic creative. By adding real-time relevance to programmatic’s sophisticated reach, brands can really turbo-boost digital display campaign performance.
Dynamic creative allows marketers and their creative teams to take control of their campaigns while they’re still running.
Adopting this approach means that any aspect of ad content, including messaging, product images, prices and call-to-action, can be updated in minutes.
The flexibility to optimise creative on the fly means marketers can take control of their campaigns. This is where measurability is key. Bespoke diagnostic tools enable us to make decisions about dynamic creative through analysis of real-time data directly from the ad. This means we can supercharge performance quickly without breaking the budget.
These measurement tools also allow us to monitor click fraud – bots used to click in patterns to artificially boost the effectiveness metrics associated with the ad. It’s now possible to adjust the modules within an ad to make sure the clicks recorded are intended and reflective of specific consumer action.
For instance, after analysing live performance data for one recent campaign we made a few small changes to the live creative that resulted in a 66% increase in ROI.
With the rise of programmatic media buying strategies, it has become a necessity to deliver cost-effective and relevant content to diverse, targeted and cross-screen audiences. No mean feat. But now that the big ad-serving platforms support functionality for in-built dynamic content, tech-savvy agencies are able to deliver creative that lives up to the performance potential that programmatic media promises.
Dynamic creative delivers a 47% increase in performance over standard ads, according to ad platform Sizmek. The reason, in a word, is relevance.
It’s easier than ever to get the right message to the right audience at the right time. Advertising creative can be assigned to a combination of triggers such as weather, location, time and gender, as well as custom re-targeting data. This means that the content adapts in real-time to provide the most relevant message based on the audience’s circumstances at the moment the ad is delivered to them.
The creative possibilities are limitless, but not necessarily expensive. For example, a DIY retailer could promote barbeques to potential customers who are seeing that ad in sunny parts of the country, while another customer viewing the same ad may see an offer on wallpaper or paint if it’s raining where they are. Or an ad seen at the beginning of the day can show messaging that is motivating and aspirational and then adapt to be calming and re-assuring by the end of a stressful workday, then playful and energetic for the weekend – all within the same ad delivery.
If a creative agency possesses technical know-how, rock solid processes and a willingness to work closely with media teams, the creative capabilities of ad tech platforms are outstanding and also financially viable.
So, no matter if your next display campaign launch is a tightly targeted one-off, or an ongoing global behemoth, the versatility, power and adaptive nature of dynamic creative content combined with meaningful real-time data can propel your campaign performance into the stratosphere.
Adam Lawrance is head of digital display at Five by Five
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